The Carolina Panthers easily dispatched the Pittsburgh Steelers, 25-10, at Bank of America Stadium on Thursday night. In a battle of backups with both Cam Newton and Ben Roethlisberger combining to make zero appearances, Derek Anderson showed why he can be a capable QB.
Steelers vs. Panthers: Anderson shines, Jones falters in Carolina win
Pittsburgh finished its exhibition slate without a win because Carolina took care of business at home on Thursday night.
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Anderson, a one-time Pro Bowl quarterback with the Cleveland Browns, completed 10 of his 15 passes for 220 yards and a pair of touchdowns. On the other end of the spectrum, however, was rookie Landry Jones. The once-promising prospect out of Oklahoma University tossed three interceptions while hitting his man on only 16 of his 35 attempts.
Brian Beversluis of SB Nation’s Cat Scratch Reader would rather talk about the defense than quarterback play, though, because that side of the ball looked better for the Panthers in their final tuneup for the regular season:
One last note, I really like the blitzes I was seeing from linebackers. We saw a few double A-gap blitzes (the same play that resulted in a Florence TD last week), and some good penetration. Schematically speaking, with our athletic linebackers we might be seeing more of that all year.
Neal Coolong of Behind The Steel Curtain picked out a good performance in defeat, singling out Chris Carter as having a very nice game for the black and gold:
He started off a bit slowly but ended up notching two sacks and forcing a fumble in a must-have game for him to make this team. Did he do enough? That'll be one of the many tough questions answered tonight and tomorrow.
Pittsburgh will open the regular season against the Tennessee Titans while Carolina sees the Seattle Seahawks first.
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